The transition into parenthood was fast and furious for us :). Sim got pregnant only a few months after our wedding which, let's just say, was not exactly the timing we were targeting for. We were of course so blessed to welcome our first healthy baby boy, Kian, but it was definitely a difficult transition into parenthood. We were living in our small 1 Bedroom NYC apartment and all of our closest friends were nowhere close to having children - let alone being engaged or married. Our entire lifestyle flipped over night. It went from late nights at bars to late nights up with the baby. But we dove right in and fully embraced it. At the end of the day we thought to ourselves, what are we really missing out on? We had lived our past life for 10+ years and were excited about this new chapter.

While my wife and I are both of Indian descent, we are two different religions -- I am a small sub religion of Hinduism, called Jainism, and my wife is Sikh. While neither of us are super religious, we each have our own unique values that we carry forward from our parents. One of those for me was ensuring that we raised our children vegetarian - just like I was brought up. A defining moment for us was having an open discussion about this - a healthy debate at times - but ultimately coming to the consensus that we'd do our best to raise our children vegetarian, and when they were old enough to make & rationalize their own decisions, they could choose whether or not they wanted to remain vegetarian. This was an important milestone because it really opened the doors for us to have critical conversations about how we want to raise our children (i.e. schooling, suburbs vs. city life, family involvement, etc.). Sometimes the toughest conversations end up being the most important ones.

Now that we are parents of two, it's pretty safe to say that mostly everything in our life has changed in terms of life pre / post kids. But we wouldn't have it any other way. There is no "me" time. There is no longer much spontaneity. Everything is planned and calculated. Yet despite all of that, there is no greater joy than seeing the smiles on your childrens' faces while having absolutely zero plans. A simple walk outside or sing along indoors are what fill us with love these days.

Life can feel lonely pretty quickly, especially when your closest friends & family nearby do not have kids. We knew that we were never going to have our free city lifestyle back but it was really hard constantly seeing the ones closest to you out and about, and not having a group of friends that are in a similar life stage as you. This was, and continues to be a big adjustment that we never fully grasped or expected how challenging it would be.

We are just so excited to have a place that is focused on families and communities like ourselves -- a safe & clean space to both meet similar and different minded parents. We are excited to have a space where we can spend hours and kill time with different activities, while allowing parents to network and relax as well. With two little ones, we are ALL about finding ways to keep the kids occupied and make the day go by with minimal tantrums. There really is nothing like The Den that exists and I know that it will be a homerun for families.